President Donald Trump spent a solid chunk of time speaking about the "chilling" state of abortion legislation today—particularly laws that protect a person's right to an abortion later in a pregnancy. His remarks contained a number of false statements and dangerous rhetoric that only increases the stigma and confusion around reproductive rights.

Here, we'll go through each of his false statements one by one, pointing to actual legislation, statistics, and medical experts for further clarification.

Trump said that a New York law "would allow a baby to be ripped from the mother's womb moments from birth." That is not true.

The legislation in New York that Trump is referring to does not allow abortion moments before birth. Instead, the Reproductive Health Act, signed by Governor Andrew Cuomo on January 22, bolsters the state's protections for those seeking abortions in line with the guarantees already set forth in Roe v. Wade.

The actual text of the legislation states: "A health care practitioner licensed, certified, or authorized in his or her lawful scope of practice, may perform an abortion when, according to the practitioner's reasonable and good faith professional judgment based on the facts of the patient's case: the patient is within twenty-four weeks from the commencement of pregnancy, or there is an absence of fetal viability, or the abortion is necessary to protect the patient's life or health."

Once again, the New York legislation does not "allow a baby to be ripped from the mother's womb moments from birth." It permits abortions before 24 weeks, which is well before a pregnancy is considered full-term or even early-term. It also allows abortions after 24 weeks only if "there is absence of fetal viability, or the abortion is necessary to protect the patient's life or health." You can read a tragic account of this type of predicament here. It is vastly different from the graphic situation that President Trump depicted.

"It does not allow for abortion on demand in the third trimester, as Trump implied," Daniel Grossman, M.D., executive director of Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH), tells SELF.

When speaking about abortion in the State of the Union address, Trump said, "These are living, feeling, beautiful babies." Medical experts would argue that a fetus is, by definition, not yet living on its own. But the idea of fetal pain, which seems to be the focus of that statement, is one that continues to come up. As SELF reported previously, the claims that a fetus can feel pain by 20 weeks are dubious at best. "The best available evidence indicates that the fetus is unable to perceive pain before 26 to 28 weeks," Dr. Grossman says. "The neural connections that allow for pain perception simply are not present before that stage of development."

Trump said that the governor of Virginia "stated he would execute a baby after birth." That's not what happened.

It seems like he was referring to Governor Ralph Northam's comments in reference to Virginia's HB2491, which would eliminate various barriers to accessing abortions, such as the requirement that abortions be performed in hospitals, a mandatory 24-hour waiting period, a mandatory ultrasound, and the need for more than one physician to certify that a second-term abortion is medically necessary to protect the health or life of the parent. (These abortion restrictions often, ironically, lead to delays in abortions, so eliminating them would theoretically decrease the number of abortions occurring later in pregnancy.)

Speaking on a local radio program, Northam addressed a hypothetical circumstance in which a person with a nonviable pregnancy goes into labor. "In this particular example, if a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen," he said. "The infant would be delivered, the infant would be kept comfortable, the infant would be resuscitated if that's what the mother and the family desired. And then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother."

Out of context, some people took this comment to be advocating for some kind of infanticide of a healthy infant, but a spokesperson for the governor clarified that his comments "focused on the tragic and extremely rare case in which a woman with a nonviable pregnancy or severe fetal abnormalities went into labor." You can listen to the full interview here (the question comes at 38:45), in which Northam also answered: "This is why decisions such as this should be made by providers, physicians, and the mothers and fathers that are involved."

Trump called on Congress to ban late-term abortions, which is not an actual medical term.

He called upon Congress to take action: "To defend the dignity of every person, I am asking the Congress to pass legislation to prohibit the late-term abortion of children who can feel pain in the mother's womb."

It's not exactly clear what Trump means here by "late-term abortions," as it's more of an arbitrary political phrase than a medical distinction. It's possible that he meant after 20 weeks, but as we've noted, only a very small percentage of abortions occur after this point.

"Talking about third-trimester abortions in the way that the president talked about it last night is tantamount to putting out a fire that’s not burning," Willie J. Parker, M.D., board chair of Physicians for Reproductive Health, tells SELF.

When abortions do occur after 20 weeks, they are often due to health issues affecting the parent and/or fetus, which may not be detectable until later in a pregnancy, Dr. Parker says. Laws banning these procedures would make it even harder for these patients to get the care that their providers have deemed necessary.

These issues might include severe abnormalities, like a fetus that only has two heart chambers instead of four or that hasn't developed functional lungs—issues that prevent the fetus from being viable. In those cases, Dr. Parker says, it's crucial that parents still have the option to discuss it with their doctor. "For parents to reserve the right, in consultation with their health care provider, to decide to compassionately end a pregnancy—even if it gets to the third trimester—to avoid the inevitable suffering should birth occur is a component that's often lost," he says. The idea that every pregnancy goes totally normally, that every pregnancy that gets to the third trimester is on an inevitable "path to a life of health, wealth, comfort, and privilege is a fallacy," he adds.

This misleading rhetoric is not just divisive, it can spread misinformation that prevents people from getting the reproductive health care they need.

"It is also important to recognize that when patients face barriers accessing care early in pregnancy due to restrictive laws, they end up having the abortion later than they wanted," Dr. Grossman says. If the goal is to reduce abortions in the second and third trimesters, we would be better served by eliminating restrictions to access that aren't based in science or safety.

Ultimately, rhetoric like Trump's is dangerous because it has real-world effects for those seeking abortions and for anyone who may need one in the future. "[His comments] feed a narrative that just undermines the interests of women and families and health care providers who are committed to providing this vital care," Dr. Parker says.

Dr. Grossman agrees. In addition to increasing the stigma surrounding abortion, "[this rhetoric] ignores the lived experience of patients who have had a later abortion and instead uses ridiculous hypothetical situations that in no way resemble the real situations that medical providers face," he says. "It’s an absurd way to have a policy discussion about medical care."